The story behind the Bulls' Berto Center

Deerfield practice facility stands as a joyful reminder of a wife, mother, employee who left the game too soon

November 20, 2010|By K.C. Johnson, Tribune reporter

Graziano and Tina Berto, the husband and daughter of the late Sheri Berto, who was an assistant to Jerry Reinsdorf and for whom the Bulls' practice facility was named. Sheri Berto died 19 years ago this week. (Brian Cassella, Chicago Tribune)

It's during quiet moments at home when the unexpected references mean the most to Tina Berto.

"I'll hear them mention it on the news, like, ' The Bulls are at the Berto Center,'" Tina says. "And something clicks inside me. It's always a special moment to remember my mom. … The building has meant more to me as I've grown up. It's the one part that isn't about death or tragedy or anything messy. It's just always happy."

Almost a year later, Reinsdorf made sure Sheri's memory would survive her, naming the Bulls' new practice facility in her honor. For players, it is state of the art. For the chairman and the Bertos, it is state of the heart.

"We pass by it often, and I feel good — for Tina mostly," Graziano says. "We used to go to the store when she was young and people would say, 'The Berto Center' and Tina would light up. She once told me, 'We're walking into a place named after my Mom. It feels like we're walking on air.'"

'I wish I had more memories'

Sheri and her husband wanted to expand their family, make Tina the oldest, not the only. But there was an issue. So on a November morning in 1991, Sheri entered Lutheran General Hospital to have a nonmalignant tumor removed from her uterus.

The surgeon nicked a vein. He failed to repair it completely. And though he ordered Sheri to stay in the hospital overnight, postoperative doctors and nurses overlooked her internal bleeding. Her heart stopped the following day.

At 40, that smile, her spirit were gone.

"It's weird because I was only 3, but I remember sitting on top of a slide and my Dad came. I was really excited to see him because it wasn't time for him to pick me up," Tina says in her first public comments since her mother's death. "I remember the look on his face. Even at 3, you understand. … I knew something was wrong.

"And then I remember being in her hospital room standing over her bed looking at her. A lot of it, even today, is so hard for me to understand and let go of. It's more sadness over what I didn't get to know and the person I lost.

"I wish that I had more memories."

Among Sheri's belongings, Graziano found a letter in her purse that she had written before the surgery.

"It was a letter from her to me," Graziano says. "She was very superstitious that something would happen to her. It said, 'You have to take care of Tina. It might be rough in the beginning. But you're going to be OK.'"

As Reinsdorf told Graziano, "That was Sheri, very meticulous."

In October 1995, a jury awarded Sheri's survivors more than $17 million for her wrongful death.

"As the years go by, you don't forget (the loss)," says Graziano, now 53. "You just learn to live with it and to manage it.

"It's not a pain that goes away."

Love at first course

They met on a cruise ship.

Graziano, who grew up on a farm outside Venice, Italy, in a small town called Conselve, came to serve her dinner table. Sheri was six years older. Graziano mustered up his best English to introduce himself.

"It was like sparks," Graziano says. "We knew what it was."

They snuck off to Curacao when the ship docked. Graziano used every pay phone in the Caribbean to check in on Sheri once she returned to Chicago. Three months later, in May 1986, he traveled to Chicago to surprise Sheri for her 35th birthday.

Sheri treasured her birthdays, once joking that she would hold Tina in when the baby's due date threatened to make theirs a shared birthday.

Four months later, Graziano took Sheri home to Italy to meet his family. They vacationed in Greece, where Graziano learned of Sheri's intense yet occasionally comical fear of heights. They made plans to marry.

They were wed in December 1987. Tina came along the next June. The young family purchased a condo in Des Plaines and settled into the rhythm of married life, full of shared mornings of cappuccinos and newspapers.

Graziano took classes for a degree in food and beverage/hotel management and rose to be manager of the main dining room at the Four Seasons downtown.

Meanwhile, Sheri kept Reinsdorf in check.

"She used to say, 'Don't act like a big shot with me; I've been in sports as long as you have,'" Reinsdorf says. "She was everybody's friend. Everybody loved and respected her, even when she told them no. She was also a great judge of people, which I'm not.

"After she passed, I found out about tons of business relationships she had with people that I had no idea she had. They'd call and never get to me because she'd take care of it.

"She was truly a part of my family. My kids loved her. My wife loved her. And she gave me a lot of s---."

She gave a lot of herself to everyone. Graziano slips in and out of present tense when recalling Sheri.

"She was very caring. She has a heart for people. For me, coming from another country, she encourages me and makes my life easier. We had such a great bonding. She loved her job and was very protective of Jerry. And she was family devoted. Tina was everything in her life."

On Sept. 30, 1988, Sheri wrote the following in Tina's baby book. "It's impossible to believe how beautiful you are and the joy you bring. Your smile lights up my world in a way I never thought possible. I didn't know there was as much love in the whole world as I feel for you. My sweet, sweet little love."

A tough time gets harder

Reinsdorf struggled for years to describe the void Sheri's passing created. The team wore patches to honor her memory the remainder of the 1991-92 season, the Bulls' second championship. Her death had an impact on players as much as the front office.

"It impacted our team emotionally, especially for younger players," says Stacey King, now a Bulls broadcaster. "She was like a mother figure to players like me and B.J. (Armstrong), who hadn't been in the league very long. … She meant so much to the organization."

She meant even more at home.

"Tina went through some rough times," Graziano admits.

Graziano remarried. It didn't work out, though it did produce a son Tina is close with.

"I'm not a psychiatrist so this is a self-diagnosis, but I feel like because I was so young, I didn't understand the concept of death," Tina says. "Obviously, I understood my mom was gone. But the whole story behind it is complicated and messy and angry. I wasn't able to grieve properly for years."

Others' kindness helped, like when Reinsdorf commissioned a 92-page book about Sheri's life, personally dedicating the copy — one of just 12 — he gave to Tina.

And she found enjoyment playing varsity tennis at Glenbrook South High School and at Roosevelt University, where she is scheduled to graduate in April 2011 with a communications degree.

Then came Robyn, Graziano's next love.

"She's one of the best things that ever happened to my dad and me," Tina says. "She has a genuine spiritual relationship with my mom. She knows she can't replace my mom. But she also lets me know she's there to be my surrogate mother if I need that."

"Tina sent her a beautiful letter three years ago and said I'm ready to call you 'mom,'" Graziano says. "Since then, that's all she calls her."

The Berto — and the Bertos — stand strong

The Bulls and the Berto Center were constant sources of solace.

Graziano counted Tina's age by Bulls championships. Both were guests of Reinsdorf's at the final five. Tina grew up around Reinsdorf's grandchildren, holding up "Repeat the Threepeat" signs during the 1998 Finals in Utah.

"Those are really good memories," Tina says.

Shortly after the Bulls' last championship, Graziano surprised Tina by taking her youth basketball team for a practice at the Berto Center. Graziano remembers Tina taking pictures, soaking it all in with her friends.

And just recently, Tina took stepsister Natalie and boyfriend Nick to the building that never lets her — or others — down.

"Every time I come in through the front door, I stop and read the plaque honoring her," Reinsdorf says.

Tina, who recently interned with the Schaumburg Flyers, wants to follow Reinsdorf's footsteps and own a sports team. She also hopes to start a nonprofit organization that would offer recreational sports opportunities to kids from single-parent homes.

Those are future goals. On a recent sun-splashed day, Tina, now 22, shifts on her couch and looks to the past. She glances over to the photo of her parents on their wedding day. She smiles.

"I talk to my mom by myself all the time," she says. "If I'm confused about something or need some advice, I'll talk to her. … I can't believe that 19 years later, she's still in people's minds.